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Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

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Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#31

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

andsoitis wrote: post #2

> The United Kingdom, the United States and Canada have had exclusively professional armies for 50 years or more. One idea would be for the EU, instead of individual member states, to stand up a professional army. Then you don't have to force people and it also just might bind European countries more closely together.

Notwithstanding a myriad of other practical problems, I don't see how that would be compatible with the NATO countries Article 5 responsibilities - bearing in mind that there are several countries in the EU that are not in NATO like Austria, Ireland and (for the moment) Sweden.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#32

Post by bpodgursky »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #13
andsoitis wrote: post #2

> The United Kingdom, the United States and Canada have had exclusively professional armies for 50 years or more. One idea would be for the EU, instead of individual member states, to stand up a professional army. Then you don't have to force people and it also just might bind European countries more closely together.

European army might be happening in the future, but entity protesting the European army the most will be USA diplomacy. On one hand US armed forces would like for Europe to be self sufficient so they can concentrate on China. On the other hand US diplomacy would lost leverage on Europe + getting another geopolitical competitor (despite being ideologically aligned with USA) isn't something what USA is looking for.

The US would like nothing more than Europe to be able to deal with Russia without help.

A joint European army does nothing to reduce US leverage; the US is still the only meaningful nuclear deterrent to Russia, and everyone in Europe knows it. But if the EU is able to credibly counter conventional threats, that's a huge bonus for the US.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#33

Post by Danieru »

The return of conscription would be the exact wrong conclusion from analyzing the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.

Germany needs a competent army and non-sabotaging government supervision. Conscripts are not a replacement for competency. Such talk is little more than the a scapegoat measure to shift blame from those responsible.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#34

Post by nordsieck »

mszcz wrote: post #12

I've always thought of those compulsory military training schemes as a little silly. You have a bunch of unmotivated people that don't want to be there. You have to house them, feed them, train them for what, 3, 6, 12 months? Seems like a lot of money. How long will that training last for? How soon will you need retraining to be even considered marginally useful? Isn't it better to spend that money on professional so…

> You have a bunch of unmotivated people that don't want to be there. You have to house them, feed them, train them for what, 3, 6, 12 months? Seems like a lot of money. How long will that training last for? How soon will you need retraining to be even considered marginally useful? Isn't it better to spend that money on professional soldiers?

It is a lot of money. National defense of some sort is also, mostly necessary for independent countries.

As for why conscription vs professional soldiers, it depends on the threat model. If you're Finland and want to be able to hold off Russia, a professional army isn't going to cut it. Mass mobilization is the only thing that has a chance of working.

Of course, you could always argue that that's what allies are for. But the problem with allies is that they don't always come through when and how you want them to.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#35

Post by jeltz »

doikor wrote: post #24
sjaak wrote: post #6

Most of Western Europe is unwilling to fight for their country https://preview.redd.it/of-europeans-who-would-fight-for-the...

And the country with the highest rate has compulsory military service.

Yeah, Sweden and Finland who both have high rates also both have military service.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#36

Post by znpy »

ajross wrote: post #30
crote wrote: post #23

It simply doesn't make any sense for most European countries. First of all, there is no viable way to actually use conscripts. Sending them overseas to die over a patch of dirt is a really bad move, as the Vietnam war has shown. Europe doesn't really want to invade anyone, so you're left with defense. So who's going to invade? The only foe even worth considering is Russia - and NATO's combined professional armies are…

> The only foe even worth considering is Russia - and NATO's combined professional armies are more than a match for them. That's been shown to be true over the last year, but prior to that it was very much an open question. Also from the perspective of "Europe" in an insular sense, it depends heavily on the large standing force and transport capability of the USA. Remember that as recently as three years ago, the occ…

> Remember that as recently as three years ago, the occupant of the white house was publicly musing about the possibility of leaving NATO and aligning with Russia!

Thanks for pointing this out… most people tend to forget this. Everything looks nice, until it doesn’t anymore.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#37

Post by exabrial »

Barrin92 wrote: post #17

I was one of the last few to go through conscription and service in Germany before it was a abolished I hope it does come back. (including of course the alternative civil service) For one it instills in young people a sense of duty and direction and also simply physical fitness which many struggle with these days, in Germany an important aspect was always to have civilian supervision in the military ('citizen in unif…

I thought your comment was insightful and didn’t deserve a down vote.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#38

Post by lamedukc »

andsoitis wrote: post #2

> The United Kingdom, the United States and Canada have had exclusively professional armies for 50 years or more. One idea would be for the EU, instead of individual member states, to stand up a professional army. Then you don't have to force people and it also just might bind European countries more closely together.

[flagged]

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#39

Post by krylon »

andsoitis wrote: post #2

> The United Kingdom, the United States and Canada have had exclusively professional armies for 50 years or more. One idea would be for the EU, instead of individual member states, to stand up a professional army. Then you don't have to force people and it also just might bind European countries more closely together.

On the one hand, that does make a lot of sense. Some European politicians want a more unified foreign policy, and a unified military force would give more weight to this desire.

On the other hand, it could get very awkward if we had another situation like we had in 2002/2003 when the US were asking other countries for support in their war on Iraq. Europe was deeply divided - at least at the leadership level - in this matter. With a unified EU military, countries would have to give up a large amount of sovereignty. And there is already a fair amount of hostility towards the EU for taking sovereignty away from member states, remember Brexit.

Personally, I think it would be a good idea if all countries could agree to give up their own national military. But I don't think it will happen. At most, I could see countries agreeing to move more authority to the NATO.

Last but not least, there are more than 25 languages being spoken in the EU. We'd have to agree on one language being the lingua franca in a unified military if we want it to work.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#40

Post by wewxjfq »

sjaak wrote: post #6

Most of Western Europe is unwilling to fight for their country https://preview.redd.it/of-europeans-who-would-fight-for-the...

Meaningless when most people didn't expect war to ever happen in Europe again. A German defense minister once famously said the Bundeswehr was defending Germany at the Hindu Kush - of course no one wants to sign up for that.
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